Deflated tires & garage sale clothes

I got a letter from Hope College today. It's been over a month since I applied for their Counseling Center therapist position. No matter how much I tried to follow up, I never was able to get very far in standing out from all the other hundreds of applicants. So anyway, the letter said exactly as I expected it to, "thanks for your interest, blah blah blah, we've decided to go with another applicant, blah blah blah". With each rejection & each struggle to get into the counseling field, I feel more & more deflated. Why does it have to be this hard? Why isn't there a place for me when I know I have so much to offer? When will someone give me a chance?
 
It’s ok at Barnes & Nobles but I’m feeling restless. This can’t be all there is for me. How depressed I would be if I had nothing more to look forward to then this. I feel so discontent, so incomplete, so held back at such a job as this. I have my M.A. in counseling & I’m working at the same job I worked at in Maryland 5 years ago. It doesn’t feel right. I want more. I want to counsel. I have so much more to offer than answering phones & finding books for customers. BN is another safety net for me. Yes, it’s good for me to be making money – even though it is only $6.50/hour. And it’s the best (& only) retail job I’d want to work at. But come on – I have my Masters & I’m working minimum wage! It’s actually not about the money. I’m thankful to be making some $ after a long dry spell of not being able to find any work. It’s more about what this kind of job is doing to my spirit, my creativity & the very livelihood of my heart. It feels like a deadening job to me. I want a job that makes me feel alive & is an outpouring of my creativity. I want to be able to use my gifts & grow & be challenged. I don’t want to just go thru the motions. I want to be in holy & sacred places with people – in their story, in their pain & struggle, in their growth & in their healing. I want to be involved in research & writing. God has created & developed within me gifts & passions & desires. They’re put on hold at BN. I’ve quickly grown bored at BN. But I’m not going to quit. I need a FT job to move into before I leave BN (don’t get nervous, Hubby). I do think it’s important for me to take notice of how I’m feeling though & the effect this job is having on me. I’m not meant to work at BN for the rest of my life. If I enjoyed it, there’d be no reason for me to move on.
 
Something that both my husband and I struggle with is moving into scary unknown places & it seems to be particularly revealing in the career arenas of our life. We’re not risking much at our present jobs. It’s easy to put our dream jobs on the backburner for something to pursue later. But I don’t want to wait until later (who knows when that will be). I know if a counseling position opened up for Husband he’d jump on it & say goodbye to the Java without a 2nd thought. But it’s just not happening for either of us so far. Do we need more courage, more trust, more leaps of faith, more utter dependence on God, more scary, risky steps into the unknown? Something has to push us out of our comfort zones. This is not the life I want to live. Life is so short & we only get one go at it. I don’t want to feel like I’m wasting time or missing out. I don’t want to be so hidden & unknown & “put on the shelf”.

I feel like those clothes hanging in my closet that I can’t fit into anymore.